Words to Tie to Bricks (11 page)

S
AMUEL
H. D
OYLE

I
SOON REALISED
I
COULDN
’
T
get it, what everyone else got: that exhilarating feeling as you pulled
the trigger, the rush of testosterone as I snatched the cash. I felt like a hollow shell in comparison; I needed more, much more. So I began my own little journey of discovery.

It was a dark night, if I remember well, for the moon was a tiny silver crescent concealed for the most part by dull clouds. It felt rather lonely outside in the shadowy alleyway, with a lone
streetlamp for company, wreathed in the sticky smoke of the factory suburbs. As I stood there, stooping in the bar doorway, this woman went wandering by. She appeared to know she was in the wrong
part of town; she was leaning forward clutching her arms to herself and darting her head behind her at regular intervals.

I knew right then what could make me tick. I rose stealthily, in my mind like a panther creeping from hiding. Using the blackness of the night and the thickness of the smog I followed the lost
little creature. Despite the gloom she stood out, the blonde tresses on her head assisting me like a lighthouse guides a trawler home to harbour. A short while later she turned, lengthening her
stride, increasing her pace, as she grew confident of safety. Such rashness was her downfall. Literally. She sped up on cobblestones and her heels snapped clean off, throwing her roughly to the
uneven ground. All hesitation vanquished, I pounced. One sharp blow to the base of her neck and next my sweating palms were sealing her struggling screams.

A tearing sensation and lots of pain, by God I’d swear that I would have blacked out, defenceless, if not for sheer bloody minded determination and adrenaline bursting through my veins.
The desperate vixen had sunk her perfect teeth deep into my finger and was ripping at it viciously. Any pretence at patience or care was thrown by the wayside as I beat her into submission. I could
feel her flesh blooming into bruises as my scarred fists flew at her; the sensation was not altogether unpleasant, almost like the texture of slightly squished strawberries, very soft and pliable
yet with a mushiness that suggested rot.

I lost all sensations momentarily; almost felt like I was hovering in the sulphuric sky, watching myself dispassionately as I enforced my will. Long after any resistance ceased I leaned back.
Only one thought continued to reverberate in my head: ‘My arms are bloody tired!’ I really felt terrible; apparently no amount of time in the gym was going to make the physical effort
of such assaults any easier. I turned back to the innate specimen sprawled bloodily on the cracked curbstones.

There was something decidedly artistic about her pose. I imagined myself as a film director, the new Spielberg, with the power to turn such beauty into a mashed up mucky mess with a few lines.
As I dreamed of the possibility I realised that my methods, brutal and barbaric, though requiring extra work, gave satisfaction of heights unattainable by less active, legal means.

To my ultimate surprise a faint moan wafted, like the whistling of an early autumn breeze, upwards to a height where it became barely detectable. An unexplainable rage took hold of me, my guts
and organs boiled in anger, visible steam must have poured forth from my orifices as I worked myself up into an unstoppable murderous frenzy. How dare that beaten weakling cling on to the life
which I had worked so hard to take away from her, the selfish bitch!

I paused briefly to flex my bulging muscles, bursting with sheer violent emotion, and contorting my hunched back painfully to relieve the aching tension. Then I lunged at the vaguely writhing
body, grasping hold of it and heaving it above my head to break her spine in one bone-crunching movement. I could have laughed as I thought of how such an action was more natural and even easier to
me than straining my bony fingers to snap a tiny pencil in half. The similar sound of her cracking bone and the pencil lead breaking was captivating.

Still feeling cheated by her earlier refusal to die, I decided to ensure that there could be no possible repeat of offensive survival. Almost snakelike, I sinuously slid a combat knife from my
tough hide boots and slowly slit her dainty perfumed throat. The sight awaiting me awoke feelings and emotions never before discovered. I found pure joy in this visage of incomparable beauty. A new
gleaming smile of my creation gazed up at me, luscious poppy red lips pulsing ever so slowly, coating the grin with an ever thicker layer of sticky, shiny gloss. It brought my mind back to the lazy
spurting of the chocolate fountain I got for Christmas last year.

I stayed with this heavenly apparition until near dawn, stricken by a love that has not yet found an equal, a passion deep, thirst unquenchable, desire insatiable that forever guides my life to
following this night time pastime. As the sun rose blearily around the towering chimneystacks I walked away, glancing back only once to see the pale torso and jeans, freshly dyed and clotted brown,
lying in a drying puddle.

The masterpiece of a very special abstract artist.

C
AELEN
F
ELLER

Lie in the snow.

It may chill you, but you won’t freeze.

Climb the hill; the house’s gaping windows stare at you, ever watching.

You may feel the urge to enter.

Listen to your instincts and open the doors.

Don’t be afraid of the dark.

Search the house, and find the object that reminds you most of home.

Take it.

Visit the outhouse; you will find a shovel.

Don’t touch the rake – it has blood on the handle.

Dig a hole in the hard, frozen ground.

Bury the object.

Find something else.

Take it.

Find a home that matches.

H
ANNAH
-R
OSE
M
ANNING

I have always feared the shadows.

Raven-black in colour, shifty in shape.

My teddy said the shadows were dangerous.

‘They’ll draw you in and keep you there.’

In daytime they whispered softly to me.

‘Come to us, Sarah, come.’

No choice but to follow.

Noon. They shrink. I grow,

No longer afraid.

But they creep back,

Lengthening fear.

When the clock struck nine,

The night stole them away.

Daytime vampires.

Morning. They’re back.

With their sinister smiles.

Grown-ups say, ‘Shadows can’t hurt you.’

But Teddy and I know best.

C
ONOR
K
ELLEHER

Y
OUR NECK
.

Bare, because of the heat. Working my way down, there’s the standard patchy haz-mat kit that everyone wears. You wear it well. Even lower, the legs, deep scratches in the thick material.
Lower still, the boots, scuffed and worn from a probable lifetime of hiking. If we go up, there’s the back of your head, your short brown hair and the strap of your gas mask.

It’s so horrifically incomplete.

That’s all that’s left. All I have to remember you by. The last I saw before the earth noticed us and swallowed you whole.

It isn’t enough. It won’t ever be.

I sit down on a nearby rock, just feet from where the ground caved in. Everything is the same black, stodgy colour through the tint of the gas. The sky is black, the ground is black, the nearby
ocean is black, the horizon is black, and the hole you disappeared down is black. The haze hangs low over everything, clutching the earth like a blanket smothering a baby.

We had been walking. Making our pilgrimage.

We’d done it, where no one else had. We’d gotten through the forests, where the trees would kill you just to watch you bleed, we made it through the barren deserts that were more
toxin than sand, and we’d made it through the metropolis full of the hopeless who never knew to wear a gas mask all those years ago when all this began. We’d done it. We’d
survived. We were a few hours from our destination, at most. Maybe even less.

And then the ground ate you.

My eyes are stinging in that strange way they do when the mask is leaking. I panic, startle, fumble with the systems check, but no, everything is safe and secure. Or so the
readings say. They’ve never lied before.

It’s gone. That snapshot of your back. The last I had of you. No, not gone. Slipping. I let it slip. It isn’t worth anything. Let it slip. Let you slip. For the best. I’ve got
a job to do, and thinking about you isn’t going to help anything. It’s best if I just forget. Forgetting’s always easy. I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time
for you.

I stand up.

And I sit back down.

And then I lie down.

And then I remember.

Remember pulling you from the roots that held you. Remember you pulling me from the acrid acid sludge as it bore down to swallow me. Remember the way one of the hopeless had held on to you and
how angry that had made me, deep inside, how I knew I had to make you safe, how I crushed his head against the wall and caved in his skull and it was like he didn’t notice but I didn’t
notice either because I was too busy noticing you.

You were the one thing that wasn’t poison.

And maybe you were, a little. But it was the good kind of poison. The one that takes you softly, and quietly. Gently. We could use a lot more of that, around here.